UKH

https://nearlywildcamping.org/clearing-up-some-of-the-confusion-about-wild-...

Anyone know if this is the same scheme that was piloted a month ago to considerable backlash by the BMC? Charging £20 for 'nearly wild camping' as they put it. 

Sounds dodgy to me. 

It actually looks quite interesting although the 'wilder campsites' aren't spread geographically very equally, so there aren't any near where I live but quite a few in Wales and the Southwest. 

It does seem though that providing toilets is necessary for anyone who wants to offer their land, so that and 10 to 20 quid cost for a family group does seem to move it into basic campsite territory, rather than a farmer saying she's fine with people pitching on her land as long as the camper paypals her a few quid - the latter would be brilliant if it could be made to work extensively.

Many years ago I used to go camping with the scouts, sometimes to 'official' camp sites but often just to a field on a local farm. We used to take chemical toilets which were emptied into deep pits (at least they seemed deep to an 11 year old). Maybe digging toilet trenches or using chemical toilets is an option for slightly wild camping? Or have health & safety rules changes so much that what was fine in the late 60s/early 70s is now illegal?

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hilltalk/ukwildcamporg_suspended-705568?v...

The wildcamp.org domain is now abandoned, but the nearlywild domain was registered some time back, so no I don't think the same.

If they’re selling a product then it should meet the standards required. It’s either a campsite or it isn’t. Sounds like a bunch of chancers trying to make a buck having sensed a trend.

Having read around the site that seems very unfair. They explain how landowners can let people camp some times on their land and charge for it without needing planning permission for a campsite but you still need public liability insurance. It all looks very reasonable. But if you want a traditional campsite, they're not offering that info.

If landowners signed up to this, presumably doing so at little or no cost to themselves, then they would be  likely to take offence at anyone not camping on their Nearly Wild Camping locations wouldn't they?

A case of;  "I say, bugger owff and camp on our designated Nearly Wild Campsite and not anywhere you see fit"?

Maybe we should set up a scheme - nearlywildclimbing.org - whereby people pay an annual fee to climb on the same crags they can already climb on for free. Could make a tidy sum if people are stupid enough to join.

Traditional campsite.

That means a set of services we expect, bogs, showers, running water etc. This is just a product of cheap liability insurance and greed.

If you agreed to pad out the crag with crashmats and set up topropes could get a lot of takers. The Gym- Outside.

It sounds like in this case the people offering land for camping do provide water and toilet facilities, just nothing else.

I wild camp reasonably regularly and needing a no. 2 is one of the 'issues' I think about a lot. If I could pay a few quid to camp out somewhere on my route knowing I'm welcome on the land and there was a toilet, even just a portaloo, that I could use, I would definitely consider it. Sometimes a proper campsite where you can have a shower, maybe wash your kit etc. is great, but lots of nights I don't need all that.

Tbh this whole marketing as nearly wild is just misleading though. Pretty much the whole premise of wild camping is that its free and you try to do it in seclusion not in the middle of someone's farm with toilets as the website seems to suggest. Also the mere fact that you have to book. If your going to do all that whats wrong with just a normal campsite? at least for them you don't normally have to book ahead.

To me this seems to be a scam and just a further attempt at commercialising the great outdoors. 

Far as I can see the idea is the same . Uk wild camp plan was to charge people £20 to book a place to 'wild camp'. Half the fee going to the owner; a quarter to the national park and a quarter to UK Wild Camp.

I'm a lot happier about this than I was about the previous website - the framing is more "let's run accessible bits of land as super low-density campsites" rather than "lets charge people for wild camping". I'm not 100% sure that the practicalities are going to add up, though - providing even basic facilities can't be cheap and will need some looking after, so is it really going to be justifiable if you've only got one group using them at a time?

"Scam" suggests dishonesty or illegality. That's a bit rich coming from a person on a internet forum with (presumably) a pseudonym who hasn't posted about anything else! In what way do you think the website is being dishonest or acting illegally?

I didn't know about this service last week when I last wild camped and it made no difference. Now I do know about it, and it won't make any difference on whether I choose to go out on Saturday night for a "solstice bivvy" or not. At some point in the future maybe I'll use their service or not. Is someone opening up a campsite or a gear shop that you've never heard of and will never use "a further attempt at commercialising the great outdoors"?

A system as you describe is available in Sweden through the DANO non-profit organisation. For a small "Nature Conservation" fee you get access to the lakeside sites which have loos, fire pits, a supply of wood and sometimes a rudimentary shelter.

Do people still use those facilities even if they haven't paid? In Finland Metsähallitus which is sort of the Finnish equivalent of the Forestry Commission and the National Parks authorities rolled into one, provides those kind of basic facilities on some state land and in the National Parks. There is wood provided for fireplaces so that people don't chop down anything themselves I guess. But because its a state authority no one pays beyond paying your taxes!

The nearly wild camping people are different.

Their scheme is not I believe the same, it is 'nearly' wild camping.

So not paying to actually wild camp on proper wild camps in the middle of nowwhere that you would have just wildcamped on before but paying to camp where you wouldn't have wildcamped in places that are 'nearly' wildcamping locations e.g quiet woodland at the back of a farm. At least I think that's how it works.

I just read wot I wrote, not sure it makes sense, I hope it does.

I imagine so but you get a card when you pay the fee so in theory I suppose they could enforce it. Perhaps some sort of ranger in a speedboat? Additionally if you are hiring canoes locally then they would probably be surprised if you didn't get a card at the same time, though you do have right-to-roam so could claim to be avoiding the sites.

I cannot afford to throw away £20 to find out if they even have any locations in Scotland.  I've e-mailed them to suggest that they make the locations and facilities on offer on each site searchable by everyone and put the contact details behind the paywall instead.

You can see on the non-clickable map that there are only a couple of places currently in Scotland. 

Can't believe there isn't a riot against this, a mass camp out in national parks. 

It's the start of a slippery slope, pay for access and losing the right to roam multiple days, unless you can afford to pay. It's certainly the opposite direction to Scandinavia where you can camp dusk to dawn anywhere within reason (non agricultural and 30m from a person property). 

Did you actually read the website? This has no impact on national parks and I don't see why it would have any impact on people wild camping anywhere else. English and Welsh law currently doesn't give us any right to camp wild anyway. I think everyone knows they could get moved on, so hence already it's a low profile thing.

But it kind of says it's legal if you pay? Hardly access for all? If the national parks, a taxpayer funded organisation, agree to this payment system then how does that rest with access for all, not just those paying. 

Edit. People should be lobbying for better access, not tolerating future payment systems. 

It is not free wild camping, if there is a toilet provided. as they suggest

Shouldn't free compost toilets in taxpayer funded areas (NPs) just be standard anyway? It would not be hard to make a stone sheep fold into a basic compost toilet. 

Plus if folk lobbied for more access to camp remotely, the human waste wouldn't be so concentrate in the few places it's tolerated?

I think you're getting the website linked in this thread, which doesn't seem to have any links with National Parks or government bodies, mixed up with the other recently reported "wild camping" scheme.

Personally, I think the provision of toilet facilities, the presence of "nearly" in the branding and the lack of association with National Parks makes this scheme a very different beast and I don't really object to it.

Don't be so silly this is Britain and the last thing landowners want is anything that would encourage commoners wandering around their gardens as they like to think of them.

On people's land. Didn't you say you are or were a farmer of some sort?

From what I can see this website has nothing to with the national parks.

Do you think you should be able to go onto someones campsite and camp there for free? Or people come into your garden and camp?

There are a reasonable number of public loos scattered around the Lake District for example but what, you reckon they should build Nordic style little wooden outhouses up on some the passes or by the higher tarns? I don't think that would get much support.

I think public toilets should be free, especially if the nt, np, council etc.. are already charging for parking. 

It's a little different in the UK because of deforestation, toilets in the wilds stand out. Think about the Norwegian huts for example, outside toilets etc, shouldn't all Scottish huts and the few in England and Wales have the same. 

So much of UK outdoors always seems like a half hearted that'll do effort. 

Why not hide a compost toilet among the cromlech boulders, it's better than everyone hiding their jobbies among the problems. 

We had a guy out walking round our fields last week looking at small louseworts, technically it's not under the open access agreement as it is fenced fields, but most land owners don't mind folk going in grassed fields. 

The access agreements in the nordics seem to afford people sufficient freedom to walk, bike, kayak, ski and camp, without removing individuals privacy at home etc.. as I'm sure you are fully aware of.   

And now Scotland has pretty much the same law - which is wonderful. In Finland though there have been lots of access problems for climbers as, with it being such a new activity, does not fit easily into the preexisting everyman's law.

I'm sure you are aware England is very different though: high population density in some parts and high recreational usage in parts where pop density is lower. More land enclosed for agriculture, and a long established system of law built around land being in private ownership.